Source: New York Times LAMPANG, THAILAND, December 16, 2000: Elephants are natural candidates for music-making! Their hearing is much keener than their sight, and they employ a vast range of vocalizations, many of which are heard on their recently released debut CD, by the New York-based Mulatta Records. The CD is a brainchild of Richard Lair, an American expatriate who…
GO TO SOURCE KABUL, AFGHANISTAN, March 3, 2001: Troops from the Taliban religious militia, under orders from their supreme commander, Mullah Mohammed Omar, used explosives and rockets Saturday to destroy two towering statues of Buddha in Bamiyan. Already two-thirds of the country’s statues have been eliminated. All the rest will be reduced to rubble on Sunday and Monday, despite worldwide…
Source: Times of India KABUL, AFGHANISTAN,March 2, 2001: The Taliban’s destruction of statues has evoked a strong response in India, with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) threatening suitable “reaction” in communally sensitive Ajmer town of Rajasthan if they do not stop “insulting” Rajput warrior Prithviraj Chauhan’s memorial in Ghazni. “The destruction of Bamiyan statues is an insult to Buddhism,” VHP…
Source: The Hindu NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 2, 2001: In a unanimous resolution adopted by both Houses of Parliament, India condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the Taliban’s decision to destroy the two 2,000- year-old Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The Parliament also offered to bring these monuments to India at its own cost. The Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya…
GO TO SOURCE NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 5, 2001: The tradition of “but shikani” (idol or statue-breaking) practiced by Arab marauders in their quest to rule the Indian subcontinent, was done on the plea that idol or religious object worshipping was un-Islamic. One thousand years later, this intolerance has resurfaced, justifying the destruction of all statues of the Buddha in…
GO TO SOURCE WASHINGTON, February 26, 2001: A controversial finding that a meteorite from Mars might contain evidence of life has been given added credence by the discovery of a magnetic crystal that researchers say could have been made only by a microbe. Scientists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston say that a crystallized magnetic mineral, called magnetite, found…
GO TO SOURCE March 4, 2001: The Tirumantiram scripture is not yet available at http://www.angelfire.com/art/ thirumanthirarsearch. However, the English text can be found at the above site, along with several other ancient Tamil scriptures.
GO TO SOURCE March 4, 2001: According to information available at the above web site, the petition on the treatment of women in Afghanistan, while largely factual, is useless. The site says, “The problem with this petition is that the person who started the petition was not prepared for the consequences. A few weeks after the petition was started, her…
GO TO SOURCE KABUL, AFGHANISTAN, March 1, 2001: Despite international outrage, Taliban troops are destroying all statues including two 5th-century statues of Buddha carved into a mountainside in Bamiyan, which they say are contrary to Islam, in the capital of Kabul as well as in other cities, said Qadradullah Jamal, Taliban’s information minister. “All the statues all over the country…
GO TO SOURCE KERALA, INDIA, February 25, 2001: Setting aside a 300-acre setting with natural flora and fauna in northern Kerala, the Kerala State Industrial Development has collaborated with Mata Amrithanandamayi to build a holistic health village on the land. Amma’s devotees from all over the world, many of them medical specialists, already spend annual retreats in Kerala. The centre…